Overview and reading list (update 16/9/16)
This course mainly focuses on optimal taxation. In the first topic, we will investigate the optimal taxation of labor income when workers take their labor supply decisions along the intensive margin, the extensive margin and both margins simultaneously. In the second topic, we study how the outcomes are affected when individuals differ along several dimensions of heterogeneity rather than skills only. Our analysis will rely on both a structural approach and a sufficient statistics approach. In the third topic, we study how optimal income taxation is influenced by labor market considerations. For instance, we will relax the assumption of perfect labor market and introduce involuntary unemployment. In the fourth topic, we broaden the standard social welfare function framework used in optimal taxation to fairness principles such as equality of opportunity. In the fifth topic, we study the relevance of commodity taxation and dynamic issues will be at the hearth of the last topic which will be on the taxation of capital. By the end of the course, students should have a good knowledge of the main theoretical results in optimal taxation and of their corresponding intuitions. They should be able to apply this knowledge to a broad range of policy issues. Finally, they should understand the structure of the academic literature on the topic, which should allow them to locate the research frontier on some important issues in taxation.
List of provided handouts:
Income taxation with intensive and/or extensive margin
Multidimensional heterogeneity
Income taxation and labor market
Income taxation and fairness
Mixed taxation (commodity taxation and income taxation)
Taxation of capital
Instructions for the exam (update 16/09/2016)
The list of papers (you pick ONE of them) will be available on Friday, the 23rd of September, 2016. The papers will be sent to you as well.
List of papers (papers have been sent by e-mail):
"Well-Being, Poverty and Labor Income Taxation: Theory and Application to Europe and the U.S.", François Maniquet and Dirk Neumann.
"Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach" by Kory Kroft, Kavan Kucko, Etienne Lehmann and Johannes Schmieder. [This paper has been already a bit discussed during the course. If you choose this paper, you should therefore pay attention to provide original/new comments.]
"A Simpler Theory of Optimal Capital Taxation" by Emmanuel Saez and Stefanie Stantcheva.
"Differential Taxation and Occupational Choice" by Renato Gomes, Jean-Marie Lozachmeur and Alessandro Pavan.
The DATE THE EXAM IS DUE is October 7th, 2016. Send your report in pdf to submissions@econ.uio.no.